


let me photograph you in this light (in case this is the last time)

by awakeanddreaming



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 12:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18282338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awakeanddreaming/pseuds/awakeanddreaming
Summary: This is for only_because3 who wanted Tessa being a sentimental bean about her very special individual event dress, the one that she only ever wore once.Thank you very much to wishfulwannabe for giving this a read for me and making sure it made sense.Title from Adele’s “When we were young”





	let me photograph you in this light (in case this is the last time)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [only_because3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_because3/gifts).



> This is for only_because3 who wanted Tessa being a sentimental bean about her very special individual event dress, the one that she only ever wore once. 
> 
> Thank you very much to wishfulwannabe for giving this a read for me and making sure it made sense.
> 
> Title from Adele’s “When we were young”

She runs her hand over the delicately beaded fabric, traces a finger over the zigzag pattern on her chest, along the collar, feels the delicate mesh in between, her other hand resting on the smooth material pulling tight across her abdomen. A chill runs through her, a brush of cool air from the arena prickling her skin. But his hand is there, warm underneath hers, and she feels the ghost of his breath, hot on her neck, as he leans down to press his lips on her shoulder.

She can hear the cheering of the crowd, muffled by the sound of her own heartbeat pulsating wildly in her ears, and his voice as he whispers a hoarse ‘ _I love you’._ The whole  world is watching as she stands in awe, his arm wrapped tightly around her, holding her upright, keeping her in the moment; keeping her grounded. He presses his palm firmly, possessively, over her stomach, using  the feel of her body under his hand to, in turn, ground himself.

She opens her eyes, blinking back to reality, to look at herself in the mirror—pale under the dim basement lighting. The dress fits differently now, of course, pulling against the small swell of her stomach, constricting and compressing her now round breasts, tugging and riding up a bit on her ass. It looks different, but the same. It’s still the same deep burgundy, still sparkles the same way when it catches the light, the skirt still swishes the same with the sway of her hips, the mesh still hugs her arms the same, the bare expanse of her back is still in stark contrast to the dark red of the fabric. It still holds the same memories, a physical manifestation of the best day of her life. Her favourite moments imbedded into a spool of thread and stitched into the bodice, the skirt, dotted across the material in the crystal beading.

She feels like it could have been merely days, not years, since she last wore this dress. The memories that she so carefully curated, and held onto maybe too tightly for too long, weaved throughout the material wash over her with a fierceness she didn’t know possible. She feels overwhelmed with the emotions that had been saved in this dress—zipped up into the garment bag in which it’s been stored, trotted around the country and proudly displayed in cases but never again worn. She’s only ever worn it once, preserving the moment she cherishes so deeply along with the dress that has become such an iconic symbol of it. She couldn’t imagine wearing it for anything else, tarnishing the specialness.

She spins, observing herself in the mirror as she does so. It still feels magical. She recalls the first time he saw her in this dress—just before their free dance in Pyeongchang. Their tradition of saving the reveal of her completed costumes was one of those things they did that seemed to come straight from the plot of a romantic film. Maybe a little ridiculous, kind of over the top, but totally them. She closes her eyes again, and just like that she is there in some back hall change room in Korea, a few hours before the biggest moment of her life.

The sharp scent of _cold_ , the same yet different in every arena, stings her nostrils. The buzz of nerves and excitement palpable, like a warm breeze cutting through the chill of the building.

She pads out of the change room, stocking footed, her team Canada jacket zipped all the way to her chin, concealing her dress. He’s been waiting for her, just outside the doors, so she takes him by the hand and guides him towards a mostly empty hallway. A quiet place away from all the Olympic buzz. She can still hear the chatter and cheers of people in the stands, the frantic rush of athletes, coaches, and volunteers as they hurry to where they ought to be, the click of professional grade cameras, and somewhere in the distance reporters brandishing microphones as weapons, loaded with 101 questions. But the chaos is mostly drowned out by the hum of the fluorescent bulbs lining the ceiling above them, the low rumble of the cooling system, and the steady in and out of his breathing as he stands in front of her.

“Want to see it?” she asks, with a quick smile.

“Of course.” He smiles back; a full on grin, bright and toothy. He reaches for the zipper pull of her jacket before meeting her eyes, “Can I?”

She nods and he begins to reveal the dress piece by piece. She can hear his low gasp, a little more than an audible puff of breath, as the zipper finally comes undone and she shrugs out of the jacket, letting it pool at her feet.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispers on an exhale, running his hands up and down her body. She closes her eyes and lets him have a moment to take her all in. “So damn beautiful, Tess.”

She opens her eyes again, only to be met with his staring back at her in complete awe. His eyes look light, the flecks of gold and the green hues mixed amongst the brown more pronounced under the bright overhead lighting. He sucks in a breath between his teeth and then exhales heavily through his nose, shaking his head like he can’t believe what he is seeing. Like she’s a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. Like he was lost without her. It’s too much. She closes her eyes again and breathes in three measured breaths, in to a count of four, out to a count of four, before looking back at him. She takes in his own costume: it’s the same he wore for the team event, but she still admires how he looks in it. How the fabric pulls right across his chest, how the mesh along his arms mirrors her own. How the sheer mesh along his sides show off some of the musculature he’s been working so hard on over the past two years. She admires how he is both strong and delicate, how he lifts her up and holds her close. She licks her lips.

His lips quirk up in a smile and she can feel heat rising to her cheeks, knows they are flushed rose.

She doesn’t understand why she still feels like this, or how he is still awestruck by her when they do this. It’s not like he doesn’t have an idea of what it will look like, it’s not like he hasn’t seen her in everything and nothing before. But for as long as they’ve been doing costume reveals before big events like this, especially like this, he never ceases to amaze her with how blown over he is by her. It’s like he’s seeing her for the first time, every time. Like he hasn’t seen parts of the dress in costume fittings, like she never showed him swatches of fabric to ask what he thought of the colour against her flesh, like he had never seen the sketches she’d gone over and over again with Mathieu. But he hasn’t seen her like this, all of it put together, her hair swept back into a low bun (pinned together with more bobby pins than she can count, crunchy with hairspray), her makeup painstakingly applied as she sat cross legged in the sink in the change room. The whole look.

She knows he loves this moment. Likes to save the reveal of her costume so that he is surprised by her, but likes to have a moment just between the two of them so he can take it all in. Admire her. Before the rest of the world gets to see. He likes to be the first one to lay eyes on her. The first to see how it all comes together. He tells her she never ceases to take his breath away. It makes her blush, every time.

“This is Satine,” he says, running his hand up and down her arm, before grasping her hand in his. His other hand comes up to cup her cheek. “But it’s also you, it’s Tess. It’s perfect,” he pauses, running his thumb along her bottom lip. “You’re perfect.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself,” she says, her eyes cast downward trying to avoid  how overwhelming it feels to have him look at her, like _that._

She never thought she would get that moment again with another dress. Having that first look, where she feels both exposed—naked and vulnerable—and cherished—wrapped up in love and warmth—ever again. At least not with him.

She can feel tears gathering in her eyes, just like they had then; tears of triumphant joy. They made it. It was a long and winding road, but they made it. She didn’t know that they would. There were a few years in the middle where the truly lost each other on their paths to find themselves. But once they did, once they each became one, instead of half, they found each other again, waiting.

There is another garment bag, next to the one that stored this dress, holding a new dress. A new dress that she will get to show him in a few weeks time. It’s that dress that she came down to try on, not this one.

Within the other bag there is a white dress. A beautiful, custom made white dress whose A-line skirt swishes around her ankles, moving with her as fluid as water. With a deep V, exposing the the pale expanse of her freckled chest, dipping just below the point of her sternum. The material gathering in a cinched waist, hugging her just right.

She had come down to make sure it still fit, that it would conceal their little secret a little while longer. She hadn’t expected the small swell of her belly when she’d had the dress made, and honestly it didn’t seem like it would be an issue—until this morning. She had gone to put on her favourite pair of jeans only to find them too tight over her growing stomach.

She’s not sure how she ended up in this dress instead, for the second time ever. Feels a bit silly for it now. Maybe it was just time. But she’d seen it, held the plastic of the bag in her hands for a long time before opening it and running her fingers along the familiar fabric. Next thing she knew she was shimmying out of her jeans, shrugging out of her plaid button up and bra, leaving them all in a heap on the floor. Maybe she was ready to remember. To stop holding on to a single moment in time like it would keep her whole.

She is thumbing away tears that have gathered under her eyes when she hears a low gasp. It sounds like a memory, stored in the fibers of this dress and packed away, escaping like the carbonation in a pop bottle as soon as you crack the lid. It’s sounds exactly like the first breath he took when he saw her in this dress for the very first time. But she knows it’s real, can hear his footsteps, muffled by the carpet, as he comes closer. Through the fog of her own tears she can see him in the mirror behind her, approaching cautiously, like if he gets too close the image before him might disappear. Even in the mirror, under the dim lighting, she can see the glimmer of tears in his own eyes. He’s looking at her like he’s never seen this dress before, as if it’s the first time he’s laid eyes on her like this all over again.

She can feel the rhythm of her heart picking up in her chest and her breath catches in her throat, trapped behind words she cannot speak. She closes her eyes, leaving him alone to look at her. It’s too much to be here with him, she was already overwhelmed by the memories woven throughout the fibers of this dress, but having him here remembering with her, it’s so much more.

“Wow,” he says, his voice soft in her ear and she doesn’t know when he got so close.

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” she manages, finally dislodging her breath and exhaling before drawing in a shaky inhale.

“I never thought I’d get to see you in this again,” he says, an arm coming to wrap around her waist. “Not for real, like this.”

Her hand trembles as she places it over his, low on her stomach. “It’s too tight now.”

He shakes his head, her hair rustling with the movement. “It fits perfectly, Tess. You look beautiful.”

She leans her weight back into him, letting him hold her up, choosing to believe him. To see past the bags under her eyes, the way the dress pulls too much over all the parts of her no longer in Olympic shape, all the parts that are growing and changing, she chooses to see herself as she knows he sees her; the exact same way she looks at him.

“I love you,” she says, squeezing his hand where it rests over her new little bump.

He drops a kiss to her shoulder, his lips lingering, breath warm on her shoulder and it could be years ago standing elated on the Olympic podium for how happy she is.

“I love you, too. We made it, kiddo.”

“We did.”

“You know, when I came down I expected to see you in a different dress,” he smirks against the skin of her neck.

“Scott!” She scolds, though without much conviction.

“What! I want to be the first one to see you like that. Just you and me…”

She smiles at him in the mirror. “You know there’s this thing called a first look. Where it’s just you and me, and maybe the photographer, when we’d both come out and see each other, me in the dress, you in your tux, for the first time. Just us. It’s a thing people do…”

“Yeah?” he kisses a line from behind her ear, down her neck and shoulder.

“Would you like to do that, Scott?”

“Please,” he hums against the juncture where her neck meets her shoulder.

“But you’ll have to wait. Just two more weeks, love.”

“I’ve waited years to see you in a new dress, I guess I can wait a few more weeks.”

“It’ll be worth the wait,” she smiles. “I promise.”

“You’re always worth the wait.” He presses the hand on her stomach down a little more firmly, flexing his fingers before rubbing his thumb gently over the stretched material of the dress. “You too, little one. You were worth the wait too.”

  
  
  



End file.
